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Summer Visit - 2025 - IMPULS

The summer visit to Caltech is 4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The IMPULS team came to visit in July 2025. The 4 core team educators attended, plus 6 students.

Quotes

  • [The most surprising thing] was the diversity of kinds of work people did to make these missions a reality.
  • [Advice to others:] Be ready to work! I have truly enjoyed being a part of the NITARP experience. I have such a better understanding of not only how to access data, but how to interpret it.
  • I have a much better picture of what it means to be an astronomer: peering at computer screens and organizing data sets! But I really love the work and am eager to learn more as the process unfolds.
  • Absolutely we did real astronomy; we were looking at data and analyzing and categorizing things that others may not have done in the past or may have done less hands-on which makes me feel like a real astronomer because we are taking data and giving it purpose that others have not done before!
  • The most interesting thing was probably the people: for the team to meet each other, to hear the stories of your IPACmates, and to be able to chat with them over donuts. “Scientist” seems like such a vague, far-away concept (especially for students, but for me, too), that it’s always fascinating to hear that they’re (usually) normal folks just a few different decisions from where we ended up. I think it was a great and eye-opening opportunity for our students to realize that, no matter where they come from, no matter what unique talents they may have, they could find a place for themselves in the science community.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2025 - IMPULS